Another biosphere experiment

Up in north Yorkshire, they're recolonising a 1100 km mineshaft, under Boulby. The press-release is a bit hype-ey, on account there's already work being done there; and of course there used to be, er, mining "down pit". In fact there still is: salt, potash.

I'm reminded of that "biosphere-2" attempted in the US some decades ago. It's even got the same name, dressed up as the usually-crap acronym (Biomedical Sub-surface Pod for Habitability and Extreme-environments Research in Expeditions, ugh). I mean, the septics failed on account they tried to mimic a sealed habitat as if it were on another planet. One hopes rather we'll be trying our Moon first, which should be able to abort back to Earth. Likewise a mineshaft should be evacuable more-or-less like Antarctica is evacuable.

I take it that the plan here is to build a sort of town next to the real scientific work that's already going on down there: medical to start-with, maybe later hydroponics, certainly waste-reclamation. There are already hints in South Africa concerning a grey economy surrounding the mining work. But that economy was difficult to study, being near-criminal. This Boulby subterranean settlement will be in contact with the above.